Sermon: Honor Thy Father and Mother

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Honor Thy Father and Mother

By Charles Rush

February 8, 1998

memory serves me correctly, one of the few times as a youth that I had my mouth washed out with soap was in violation of this commandment. There is a variant reading of this commandment that reads ‘if thou curseth thine mother or thine father' and then some exacting punishment follows. We were convinced as children that President Johnson, Governor Faubus, the Principal of our school, Mr. McKinley, Rev Settleth at the church, and our parents were all part of a well orchestrated conspiracy to manipulate us into living as though honor respect really meant the uncritical obeisance of the sycophant. In retrospect, there was some basis for our concern. On the other hand, I did have a mouth. I remember hearing ‘honor thy father and thy mother' as soapsuds were gurgling from my throat.

Even today, I enjoy having my confirmation class look up some passages of scripture in the bible to get them familiar with the books of the bible. I still have them look that one up and read it out loud. "Thou shalt not curse thy father or thy mother." Then I ask ‘who here has ever cursed their parents?' Eyes are quickly cast to the floor en masse.

How refreshing to read years later that this is not the meaning of this text. Indeed, it is not directed to children at all but to adults, in those days male adults of the community. Interestingly, the whole meaning of the text has come alive for us in this generation in a way that it rarely has in human history because the length and quality of our lives is increasing so dramatically.

This commandment follows the fourth, which says ‘You shall observe the Sabbath and not despise it'. The two are related. The Sabbath commandment recognizes that people need rest. They cannot be worked 7 days a week, not even the slaves or the beasts of burden. Everything needs a rest and so do we.

The fifth commandment to honor our parents recognizes that as they age they retain their dignity and importance in the community, even as they are relieved from their obligations to work. "Just as human beings and beasts need rest from their labors, and just as grinding toil does not constitute the only reason for human life and activity, so also human beings do not cease to have worth and significance when the time for their productive working years has run its course. Parents are to be respected and cared for in their time of feebleness, diminished activity, or senility. When they enter upon their Sabbath rest they are to be shown respect and honor such as they were shown in their time of active membership in the community" (Walter Harrelson, The Ten Commandments ).

This week's paper gave witness to that this will become an increasing challenge as we live longer and healthier lives. In an article in Monday's Times they showed a map of the number of rural counties in the Midwest where the percentage of people over 65 was above 20% of the population. They were numerous. An interview with one woman was typical. Her children had all moved to a city somewhere else in Nebraska and she was 82 years old. She was still able to get around fairly well. She said ‘my son-in-law wants me to move into a planned living community near my daughter and him but why would I want to do that. I don't know any one there and all of my friends are here.' The article went on to talk about the number of changes that have been underway in the last decade as a result of this demographic change. The churches in these small towns sponsor more lunches so elders can get together for a social time. And the retired crowd in small towns volunteers more, involving themselves in the political life of the community and running ancillary programs for the local schools. Increasingly, the elders are taking better care of each other. As families move away, the extended church family becomes more important. People check on each other and do errands for each other when they are ill. It was a snapshot of Christmas future, as the baby-boomer generation will manifest this challenge much more than the present.

I dare say most of us are either presently struggling with this issue right now in some fashion or we will be shortly. Most of us have one of our parents (or grandparents) that are really slowing down but still active, losing some of their physical rational faculties but still able to communicate and have a meaningful life. The question comes to us, should we ask Mom to move in with us or not? Should we put Dad in a nursing home or not? How do we honor our Mother and our Father in these situations? It is an important spiritual question to think about before we actually get to the situation.

I remember having this discussion with my grandmother just after she moved in with my parents and left her home in Memphis Tennessee for a strange new life in the suburbs of Washington. I said to her ‘Grandmudge' we still call her grandmudge because 40 years ago the first time I tried to call her by name what came out of my 18 month old mouth was Grandmudge and it is still just fine with her. I said ‘Grandmudge, it must be hard to leave behind your whole life and move into a strange land.'

She said to me ‘Honey, it wasn't all that hard. Just about everybody I knew that meant something really deep to me is already dead.' She out lived her husband, outlived her 7 brothers and sisters, all of her bridge partners. I said something like ‘wow, that sounds really lonely.'

She said ‘Could be but I won't let it be'. Grandmudge joined the Methodist church, began to volunteer down at the hospital where she takes care of some of the old folks. I get a kick out of the fact that this 91-year-old woman drives herself down to the hospital and helps out with the old people that are 80.

One of the ways that we honor our parents is that we encourage them to keep vital involvement as long as they can. Of course, what vital involvement means varies from person to person. And it is important to remember that what people are like in old age is not likely to be substantially different from what people are like when they are younger. My grandmudge was just always a matter of fact type of person who tackled a problem. She lived through the depression and lost the farm, she watched her husband go off to the South Pacific in the Great War. Both times she moved, changed careers, met people and did what needed to be done to get a life. That is just who she is. Other people might well retreat into themselves and not venture out as much because that is who they are or perhaps that is the way that they handle their grief. We need to honor that who they are and give them a vital involvement and that is difficult sometimes. But we need to watch that we don't project onto our parents our feelings of what constitutes vital involvement. Most of us here are pretty active folks. A bunch of us know a whole lot of people and spend quite a lot of time socializing. We need to travel a good deal, get out and enjoy culture. And we need to watch that we don't project what makes us feel fulfilled onto our parents. Ideally, we honor them when we allow them to be vitally involved on their terms, according to what they find important and meaningful, doing the things that they find fulfilling. From our vantagepoint, it might be a little bit slow but that does not mean that it is not meaningful to them.

On the one hand, our elders are living life just as they always have, one day at a time. On the other hand, they are going through maybe the most spiritually rich and challenging time of life. They can see the end of their lives feel it and they are coming to grips with that on an emotional level that the rest of us simply don't feel in the same way. And they are regularly reminded of it as well. I know of one elderly gentleman who remarked to me recently that he seems to see people that meant the most to him over the years these days mostly at funerals. I know another elderly gentleman who it seemed I was visiting in the hospital way too often. It was one thing after another. One time I was talking to him on a visit and he said to me ‘my boy, it's like patching up an old used car. You get the transmission working and a leak springs in the radiator.' Reminded regularly that death is near!

Just like with us, when you are sick a lot of the time, you can't help but get grumpy. But old people are grumpy in a different way than we are because they can't help but be reminded consciously or unconsciously that death draws near. Spiritually, there are signs all around them that things are falling apart that are preparing them for the ultimate dissolution, which we cannot control, and it scares the hell out of us, as it should. It is a ripe spiritual time of life. If you can show me a person that has really come to grips with the reality of their dying, someone who is really centered and at peace with that, I will show you someone who really understands what it means to live and what our lives are all about. Frankly, there are a whole lot of us who never figure it out. We just age and quit living, we do not conclude because we never really do fully mature. And it is possible to live this way unfortunately.

So there is some difficult spiritual work coming to grips with dying that produces some negative emotions. Many or most of our significant loved ones have died before us, there are physical limitations, and losses of some former pleasures, all of which directly or indirectly point to our own dying. There are some profound questions that begin to come front and center. People begin to wonder out loud if their living made a difference at all. Some older people need to tell different stories about their lives over and over because they are trying to come to some sense about the significance of their life as a whole. People begin to reassess their lives and begin to realize how much time they wasted, poor decisions that they made, the misplaced values and priorities. And hopefully, they also begin to get emotionally in touch with what is precious about living. Emma Ridings used to kiss everyone that came to visit her I believe before she died. She would hug you a good long hug and hold your hand the whole time you were there. And she had that wonderful soft skin that old people have. I hope I grow old like that. What a simple but profound blessing, a touch, a hug, a kiss. She had a sense of the precious nature of life.

I love to watch old people when little children come around. They light up in a marvelous manner because they feel the preciousness of children. These are two groups that were made for each other. Children almost instinctively rise to their best behavior and have a natural curiosity and respect for elderly. And old people with any sense seem to always have a box of candy stashed somewhere because all children need a little treat now and again. Part of what happens in these exchanges is a simple and profound acknowledgment of the precious character of life itself. Light up at the wonder of childhood.

Preparing to die changes our perspective on life and people who have been privileged to walk someone else through the transition from living to dying say with near unanimity what a profound and important and (in a strange way) a rewarding experience it is. At the very end of life people often times miss people that meant so much to them that they look forward to dying to be reunited with them. Often times there are periods when they get tired and they look forward to dying as a release. It is not morbid; it is a natural part of their changed perspective. People often times know that they are about to die even if they don't give verbal expression to it.

We honor our parents when we let them go through this transition. Ideally, we should be able to support them emotionally and otherwise as they make this very important transition. So often, we are not mature enough ourselves to be of any help. The whole thought of death is threatening. We have our own control issues and we decide prematurely what is best for Mom or Dad. Sometimes we are afraid at a very basic spiritual and emotional level of living without our Mommy and Daddy. Instead of letting them be in the space of making that transition, we bring our issues to bear, and needlessly complicate the process or divert attention away from the transition itself. Sometimes the reality is that we are uncomfortable or unable to walk down this journey with them. Instead, we are children to the end, bringing our problems and our stuff for Mom and Dad to deal with. Sometimes, the reality is that we just want this to go away. Despite its inevitability, despite the fact that we are going to go through this one day too, we don't want to deal with it. And this is an option but it is too bad because the potential exists in this relationship for us to really grow and become centered and learn about the meaning of life. What a great blessing that our parents have to give us at the end of life if we are able to receive it. Important honor!

All of our life builds us up to the final reality of ‘letting go'. And it takes most of us an entire lifetime to work ourselves up to being able to do it. No one ever said this is easy or uncomplicated work. It is very hard and this precisely why it is also so profound. "Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land which the Lord your God shall give you." God grant us the maturity to be of support to them.